The (Digital) Humanity of Portuguese Characters in Brazilian Literature

Members: Tania Martuscelli, Associate Professor, Spanish and Portuguese Department; Carlos B. Martins-Filho, Professor, Economics;  Nickoal Eichmann-Kalawara Assistant Professor and Digital Scholarship Librarian, University Libraries; Pedro Sebastian Cuevas Collante, Graduate Student, Spanish and Portuguese Department; Nivea Soto-Lightbourn, Continuing Education; Kassandra McLean, Graduate Student, Economics.

The research cluster "The (Digital) Humanity of Portuguese Characters in Brazilian Literature" focuses on transatlantic studies, cultural studies, and hybridity under the lenses of Literature and Economics. The research based on Portuguese characters in Brazilian Literature will shed new light into Brazilian society of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that combines culture and politics (that is, economics and diplomacy). LASC cluster will help further expand the work of the research group "Portugueses de Papel" ( http://pdp.colorado.edu), and will contribute internationally to the visibility of multidisciplinary Latin American studies at CU Boulder.

 

Indigenous Studies in the Americas, Narratives of Belonging and Land Reclamation

Members: Penelope Kelsey, Professor, English Department;  Leila Gómez, Associate Professor, Spanish and Portuguese Department, LASC director; James Andrew Cowell, Professor, Linguistics Deparment, Director of CNAIS; Javier Muñoz, PhD candidate, Spanish and Portuguese Department.

In addressing Indigenous American languages in transhemispheric context, this cluster seeks to open up conversations across disciplines and regions of the Americas. Failure to cross the North/South boundary constitutes a long-standing geographic blind spot in the field of indigenous studies, one that this cluster hopes to encourage scholars to traverse meaningfully. The goal is to bring together theoretical frameworks and case studies that can fruitfully be compared across regions in order to find commonalities and specificities that

shed light on hemispheric Indigenous Studies -in North, Central, and South America- today. This cluster is devoted to studying narratives of creation and origin as they are told and transmitted in Indigenous languages and conflictive settings of the Americas. Following Anibal Quijano's critique of the coloniality of power as the system that imposed the devaluing of certain cultural knowledge, including Native Americans, to enforce Western racial, cultural, and male superiority, this cluster seeks to investigate indigenous narratives of the hemisphere that depict visions of territorial origin that claim territory as their own. Symbolic territory and land reclamation are the focus of Indigenous activism in the Americas. This cluster seeks to explore the Native narratives that give foundation and legitimacy to this political practice and, at the same time, find the ways in which they are spread continentally, in specific contexts and beyond national histories. We are also interested in comparatively studying narratives of origin and creation of Native communities that were and are nowadays constantly displaced, and understanding the diasporic meaning of these narratives in land struggle.

 

Mapping Relationality in Latinidad: A CU Boulder Latinx studies research cluster

Members: Jim Miranda, PhD candidate, English Department; Raúl Melgoza, PhD Candidate, Ethnic Studies Department; Laura Malaver, PhD Student, Ethnic Studies Department; Héctor Ramírez, Assistant Director, CU Boulder Upward Bound, Office of Pre-College Outreach & Engagement.

This interdisciplinary research cluster brings together those interested in discussing matters and sharing research on the relationality of Latinidad. We take the amorphous parameters of Latinidadas an opportunity to engage relational forms of difference: how categories such as race, gender, sexuality, class, and citizenship are not discrete forms of difference, but overlapping and constitutive social formations. We are invested in understanding how power and difference give shape to, and are shaped by, the social relations that exist across and within Latinidad. We thus take relationality as a generative concept for considering transnational forms of entanglement, and studying processes and practices related to community and identity formation.

This research cluster seeks to provide a communal and intellectual space where the diversity of Latinidad can be animated for research projects, teaching goals, and the maintenance of an active and enriching dialogue on campus on matters relevant to communities of Latin American origins in the United States. As a means of activating a praxis of relationality, this cluster welcomes all interested parties, including faculty, staff, alumni, graduates, undergraduates and the wider Boulder community, to participate in the cultivation of connections and mentorships that cross institutional, disciplinary, and other formal and informal boundaries.

The research cluster convenes monthly throughout the academic year. Structured around a particular theme, the monthly meetings are intended to explore the role of relationality in conducting responsive and ethical research and foster interdepartmental dialogue and community building across the university. Each meeting will thus be grounded in a key concept, suggested readings, and writing submissions by members relevant to the theme. Participants are encouraged although not required to review the suggested readings and writing submissions.